Recombinant soluble Fc receptors

ABSTRACT

Recombinant soluble Fc receptors according to the present invention are characterized by the absence of transmembrane domains, signal peptides and glycosylation. Such Fc receptors can easily be obtained by expressing respective nucleic acids in prokaryotic host cells and renaturation of the obtained inclusion bodies, which procedure leads to a very homogenous and pure product. The products can be used for diagnostic as well as pharmaceutical applications and also for the generation of crystal structure data. Such crystal structure data can be used for the modelling of artificial molecules. A further embodiment comprises coupling the Fc receptors according to the invention to solid materials like chromatography materials that can be used to separate and/or enrich antibodies.

This application is a divisional application of U.S. application Ser.No. 11/327,695 filed Jan. 6, 2006, which is a divisional application ofU.S. application Ser. No. 09/856,933 filed Feb. 27, 2002, now U.S. Pat.No. 7,074,896, which is a § 371 of PCT/EP99/09440, filed Dec. 3, 1999,incorporated herewith by reference in its entirety.

The present invention relates to recombinant soluble Fc receptors (FcR),recombinant nucleic acids coding for such Fc receptors, host cellscontaining corresponding nucleic acids as well as a process for thedetermination of the amount of antibodies of a certain type contained inthe blood, plasma or serum of a patient, a process for the determinationof the immune status of patients with chronic diseases of the immunesystem and a process for the screening of substances in view of theirability to act as inhibitors of the recognition and binding ofantibodies to the respective cellular receptors. Further, the presentinvention is concerned with pharmaceutical compositions containing therecombinant soluble FcRs, crystalline preparations of FcRs andFcR/Ig-complexes and especially of the use of such crystallinepreparation for the generation of crystal structure data of Fc receptorsas well as FcR inhibitors and pharmaceutical compositions containingsuch FcR inhibitors.

A still further subject of the present invention is a recombinant Fcreceptor coupled to a solid phase, e.g. a chromatography carriermaterial. The use of such chromatography material, which is anothersubject of the present invention, lies in the absorption ofimmunoglobulins from a body fluid of patients or from culturesupernatants of immunoglobulin producing cells.

Fc receptors (FcRs) play a key role in defending the human organismagainst infections. After pathogens have gained access to the bloodcirculation they are opsonized by immunoglobulins (Igs). The resultingimmunocomplexes bind due to their multivalency with high avidity to FcRbearing cells leading to clustering of the FcRs, which triggers severaleffector functions (Metzger, H., 1992A). These include, depending on theexpressed FcR type and associated proteins, endocytosis with subsequentneutralization of the pathogens and antigen presentation,antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxity (ADCC), secretion of mediators orthe regulation of antibody production (Fridman et al, 1992; van deWinkel and Capel, 1993).

Specific FcRs exist for all Ig classes, the ones for IgG being the mostabundant with the widest diversity. Together with the high affinityreceptor for IgE (FcεRla), FcγRI (CD64), FcεRII (CD32) and FcεRIIIa(CD16) occur as type I transmembrane proteins or in soluble forms(sFcRs) but also a glyeosylphosphatidylinositol anchored form of theFcεRIII (FcεRIIIb) exists. Furthermore, FcεRs occur in various isoforms(FcεRIa, b1, b2, c; FcεRIIa 1-2, b1-3, c) and alleles (FcεRlla1-HR, -LR;FcεRIIIb-NA 1, -NA2) (van de Winkel and Capel, 1993). In contrast to theoverall homologous extracellular parts, the membrane spanning and thecytoplasmic domains differ. They may be deleted entirely or be of a sizeof 8 kDa. They may contain either a 26 amino acid immunoreceptortyrosine-based activation motif (ITAM) as in FcγRIIa or a respective 13amino acid inhibitory motif (ITIM) in FcγRIIb involved in signaltransduction (Amigorena et al, 1992).

Judged by the conserved spacing of cysteins, the extracellular part ofthe FcRs consists of three (FcγRI, CD64) or two (FcεRI, FcγRII, CD32 andFcγRIII, CD16) ig-like domains (10 kDa/domain) and therefore belongs tothe immunoglobulin super family. These highly glycosylated receptors arehomologues, and the overall identity in amino acid sequence among theFcγRs and FcεRIa exceeds 50% in their extracellular regions.Nevertheless, the affinity of FcRs to their ligands varies widely. Thehigher affinity of ≈10⁸M⁻¹ of the FcγRI to Fc-fragment is assigned toits third domain, while the other FcγRs with two domains have anaffinity to IgG varying between 10⁵ and 10⁷M⁻¹. The affinity of the twodomain FcεRla to IgE exceeds these 30 values by far with a constant of10¹⁰M⁻¹ (Metzger, H., 1992B). In contrast to the mentioned FcRs the lowaffinity receptor for IgE Fce-RII represents a type transmembraneprotein and shows a lower homology.

Fcγ Rs are expressed in a defined pattern on all immunological activecells. FcγRI is constitutively expressed on monocytes and macrophagesand can be induced on neutrophils and eosinophils. The physiologicalrole of FcγRI is still unknown as the expression on monocytes is notvital (Ceuppens et al., 1988). The GPI anchored form of FcγRIII(FcγRIIIb) is exclusively expressed on granulocytes. Due to its missingcytoplasmic part, the signal transduction into the cell occurs solelyvia other transmembrane proteins like complement receptor type 3 (CR3)that can at least associate with FcγRIIIb (Zhou et al, 1993; Poo et al,1995). FcγRIIIa is mainly expressed on monocytes and macrophages butonly in conjunction with associated proteins (e.g. α- or γ-chains).FcγRII is the receptor with the widest distribution on immunocompetentcells and is mainly involved in the endocytosis of immunocomplexes.

FcγRIIa and FcγRIIb differ in their extracellular region by only 7% ofthe amino acid residues. Nevertheless, both forms can be distinguishedby their binding characteristics to human and mouse IgG subclasses (vande Winkel and Capel, 1993) and their differing affinity to human IgGs(Sondermann et al., 1998A). The situation is rendered even morecomplicated by the high responder/low responder (HR/LR) polymorphism ofFcγRIIa named after the ability of T cells from some individuals torespond to murine IgG1-induced mitogenesis (Tax et al, 1983). Later, itwas found that the two exchanges in the amino acid sequence between theLR and the HR form modify the ability to bind human IgG2, which leads tothe suggestion that at least one of them is involved in IgG binding(Hogarth et al, 1992).

In contrast to the beneficial role FcRs play in the healthy individual,they also transmit the stimulation of the immune system in allergies(FcεRIa) or autoimmune diseases. Moreover, some viruses employ FcγRs toget-access to cells like HIV (Homsy et al, 1989) and Dengue. (Littaua etal, 1990) or slow down the immune response by blocking FcγRs as in thecase of Ebola (Yang et al, 1998) and Measles (Ravanel et al, 1997).

Hence, the object underlying the present invention was to providereceptors which are easy to produce and can advantageously be used formedical or diagnostic applications. Moreover, it was an object of theinvention to provide soluble receptors exhibiting a binding specificityand activity which is analogous to that of the receptors occurringnaturally in the human body and which, additionally, make it possible toproduce crystals suitable for a structure determination.

This object is accomplished by recombinant soluble Fc receptors whichconsist only of the extracellular portion of the receptor and are notglycosylated. The receptors according to the present invention aretherefore characterized by the absence of transmembrane domains, signalpeptides and glycosylation.

Particularly preferred for the present invention are Fcγ or Fcεreceptors. This is because IgG and IgE molecules are characteristic fora multiplicity of diseases and conditions, so that their determinationand possible ways of influencing them are of great interest. FIGS. 11and 12 show an alignment of amino acid sequences of the extracellularparts of some FcγRs and FcεRI. The FcRs according to the inventioninclude all these sequences or parts thereof that still retain bindingcapacity to antibodies and/or proper crystallization.

In a particularly preferred embodiment of the invention the recombinantsoluble FcR is a FcγRIIb receptor. Further, it is particularly preferredthat the receptor be of human origin. In a particularly preferredembodiment, it contains an amino acid sequence as shown in one of SEQ IDNO: 1 to SEQ ID NO:6.

According to the present invention, the preparation of the soluble Fcreceptors preferably takes place in prokaryotic cells. After suchexpression, insoluble inclusion bodies containing the recombinantprotein form in prokaryotic cells, thus facilitating purification byseparation of the inclusion bodies from other cell components beforerenaturation of the proteins contained therein takes place. Therenaturation of the FcRs according to the present invention which arecontained in the inclusion bodies can principally take place accordingto known methods. The advantage of the preparation in prokaryotic cells,the production of inclusion bodies and the thus obtained recombinantsoluble Fc receptors make it possible to obtain a very pure and, inparticular, also very homogeneous FcR preparation. Also because of theabsence of glycosylation the obtained product is of great homogeneity.

Soluble Fc receptors hitherto produced by recombinant means particularlyexhibited the disadvantage that a much more elaborate purification wasrequired, since they were expressed in eukaryotic cells and, due to theglycosylation which is not always uniform in eukaryotic cells, theseproducts were also less homogeneous.

The recombinant soluble Fc receptors according to the present inventioneven make it possible to produce crystals suitable for use in X-rayanalysis, as shall be explained later on in the description of furtherembodiments of the invention. The FcRs of the present invention moreoverexhibit practically the same activity and specificity as the receptorsnaturally occurring in vivo.

A further subject matter of the present invention is a recombinantnucleic acid having a sequence coding for a recombinant soluble Fcreceptor according to the present invention.

The nucleic acid according to the present invention may contain only thecoding sequences or, additionally, vector sequences and/or, inparticular, expression control sequences operatively linked to thesequence encoding the recombinant FcR, like promoters, operators and thelike.

In a particularly preferred embodiment the nucleic acid of the presentinvention contains a sequence as shown in one of SEQ ID NO:7 to SEQ IDNO: 12. For a comparison, SEQ ID NO: 13 and SEQ ID NO: 14 show therespective wild type sequences coding for FcγRIIb and FcεRIa. SEQ IDNOs: 15-18 show the wild type sequences for FcγRI, FcγRIIa, FcγRIII andFcεRII.

If the nucleic acid of the present invention contains vector sequences,then these are preferably sequences of one or several prokaryoticexpression vectors, preferably of pET vectors. Any other known functionsor components of expression vectors may also be contained in therecombinant nucleic acid according to the present invention if desired.These may, for instance, be resistance genes allowing for an effectiveselection of transformed host cells.

A still further subject matter of the present invention is a host cellcontaining a recombinant nucleic acid according to the presentinvention. As repeatedly mentioned above, the host cell preferably is aprokaryotic host cell, particularly an E. coli cell.

The recombinant soluble Fc receptors according to the present inventioncan be used for a multitude of examinations or applications because theyspecifically react with antibodies. In vivo, the soluble Fc receptorsare powerful immunoregulators which, if present in elevated levels,result in a remarkable suppression of the immune system which leads tomany partly known and partly not yet understood effects. Based on theseeffects, several applications of the Fc receptors according to thepresent invention are further subject matters of the present invention.

One such subject is a process for the determination of the amount ofantibodies of a certain type in the blood or serum of a patient, whichis characterized by the use of a recombinant soluble FcR according tothe invention in an immunoassay, and the determination of the presenceof FcR-antibody complexes. Such assay allows to screen for the presenceof a certain kind of antibody and allows also for the determination ofthe amount of antibodies present in the blood, plasma or serum of apatient.

Any type of immunoassay is principally suitable for the use according tothe present invention, as long as the presence of FcR-antibody complexescan thereby be detected. Both ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbentimmunoassay), particularly sandwich assays, and RIA (radio-immunoassay)are suitable, but also competitive testing methods. In a preferredembodiment of the invention where the presence and/or the amount of IgEantibodies is to be examined, an FcεR is used as recombinant solublereceptor according to the present invention. In particular, this methodis suited and advantageous for determining a predisposition ormanifestation of an allergy.

Moreover, a method is preferred in which the presence of soluble FcRs isto be determined and, if required, quantified. For such determinationpreferably a competitive immunoassay method is used, wherein ascompetition reagent a recombinant soluble receptor according to theinvention is used, most preferably a recombinant FcγR. By means of thistest among others the immune status of patients with chronic diseases ofthe immune system can be determined in a competitive immunoassay.Chronic diseases in the sense of these processes are for instance AIDS,SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), MM (multiple myeloma) or rheumatoidarthritis, or in the case of FcεRII in β-CLL (Gordon et al., 1987),hyper IgE syndrome (Sarfati et al., 1988) or HCL (Small et al., 1990).

A further advantageous use of the recombinant receptor according to thepresent invention lies in the screening of substances in view of theirability to act as inhibitors of the recognition and binding ofantibodies to the respective cellular receptors.

By means of modern screening techniques such as HTPS (high throughputscreening) in combination with multi-well microtiter plates andautomatic pipetting apparatuses it is nowadays possible tosimultaneously test a multitude of substances for specific properties.As the FcRs according to the present invention can be easily produced atlow cost, they can also be used in such series tests by which substanceshaving an inhibiting effect can easily be identified.

Particularly preferred is such use according to which Fc receptorsaccording to the present invention are used to find or screen inhibitorscapable of inhibiting the recognition and binding of the respectiveantibodies to the particular receptor of interest.

A further area of application of the substances according to theinvention lies in the pharmaceutical field. Hence, a further subjectmatter of the invention is a pharmaceutical composition comprising asactive agent a recombinant soluble FcR according to the invention.According to the present invention, this pharmaceutical composition mayof course comprise conventional useful carrier and auxiliary substances.Such substances are known to the person of skill in the art, the mode ofadministration also having to be taken into account. The pharmaceuticalcomposition of the present invention can be advantageously used for thetreatment or prevention of autoimmune diseases, allergies or tumordiseases.

Soluble forms of Fc receptors such as FcγRIII mediate isotype-specificregulation of B cell growth and immunoglobulin production. In a murinemodel of myeloma, sFcR suppresses growth and immunoglobulin productionof tumor cells (Müller et al, 1985; Roman et al, 1988; Teillaud et al,1990). Furthermore, sFcR binds to surface IgG on cultures of humanIgG-secreting myeloma cells and effects suppression of tumor cell growthand IgG secretion. Prolonged exposure of these cells to sFcR results intumor cell cytolysis (Hoover et al, 1995).

Also, overreactions of the immune system in allergic reactions or due tomassive antigen load might be reduced by, for example, intravenousapplication of soluble FcR (Lerino et al, 1993).

Therefore, a preferred pharmaceutical composition according to theinvention for use in the treatment of AIDS, rheumatoid arthritis ormultiple myeloma contains a recombinant soluble Fcγ receptor and,preferably, a receptor having the amino acid sequence as shown in SEQ IDNO: 1-4.

It was also of great interest to obtain crystal structure data of Fcreceptors and/or Fc receptor/Ig complexes. On the one hand, these are akey to the understanding of molecular mechanisms in immunocomplexrecognition. On the other hand, these structural data can be used tofind out common features in the structures of different Fc receptors anduse the knowledge of the structures to generate inhibitors or identifyand produce new artificial antibody receptors.

It was also of great interest to obtain information on the concretebinding sites of immunoglobulins to their respective receptors innaturally occurring three-dimensional molecules. Therefrom even moreprecise findings on the interactions between antibody and receptor canbe obtained and also on how these interactions can be modulated. In thisconnection modulation means either an enhancement of the interaction ora reduction leading to an inhibition by e.g. covering the binding siteson one or more parts of the complex.

To obtain such crystal structure data and conformation information, acrystalline preparation of the recombinant soluble Fc receptor accordingto the invention is used. The recombinant soluble FcRs according to theinvention surprisingly can be obtained pure enough to produce crystalsthat give reliable X-ray structure determination data. Suchcrystallization was not possible with the hitherto produced receptormolecules, mostly due to their lack of homogeneity.

Therefore, another embodiment of the present invention concerns acrystalline preparation of an Fc receptor according to the invention.Yet another embodiment of the present invention is a crystallinepreparation of a complex of soluble Fc receptor according to theinvention together with the related immunoglobulin Fc part. Particularlypreferred embodiments are shown in the examples as well as the relevantcrystal structure data. Via crystal structure analysis of thecrystalline preparations the exact amino acids of the Fc receptor/Igcomplexes could be detected which mediate the coupling. These aminoacids are in shown FIGS. 6 a and 6 b and the type of binding between theindividual amino acids of both molecules in the complex is alsoindicated. A further embodiment of the present invention is thereforethe use of a crystalline preparation of a recombinant soluble Fcreceptor for the generation of crystal structure data of Fc receptors.From this crystal structure data information about the three-dimensionalstructure and the active sites for the binding of antibodies can beobtained. Especially preferably is the use of a crystalline preparationof a complex of recombinant soluble Fc receptor according to theinvention and the corresponding immunoglobulin molecule for thegeneration of crystal structure data for the complexes. These data allowto determine the actual interactions that are formed between the twomolecules and allow for the first time to obtain exact information aboutthe interaction of the molecules thereby conferring knowledge aboutpossible sites for inhibition or enhancement of the binding. On thebasis of the information obtained from the crystal structure data thefindings necessary for effecting modulation of the interaction betweenFc receptor and immunoglobulin can be obtained. This modulation can berange from enhancement to complete inhibition to an inhibition of thebinding.

The stated applications are merely preferred embodiments of the use ofthe crystal structure data. Many other applications seem possible, too.

Suitably, the structural data for the generation and/or identificationof inhibitors or new receptors, respectively, are used in acomputer-aided modelling program.

Particularly preferred for the present invention are the structures ofFcRs or FcR:Fc-fragment complexes as exemplified in figures andexamples. Such structures can be used to design inhibitors, antagonistsand artificial receptor molecules.

Computer programs suitable for computer-aided drug design and screeningare known to the person skilled in the art and generally available. Theyprovide the possibility to examine umpteen compositions on the computerin view of their ability to bind to certain molecule when thecorresponding structure dates are entered in the computer. With the helpof this possibility a great number of known chemical compositions can beexamined regarding their inhibiting or antagonistic effect. The personskilled in the art merely requires the crystal structure dates providedby the present invention and a commercially available screening program(Program Flexx: From the GMD-German National Research Center forInformation Technology, Schloss Birlinghoven, D-53754 Sankt Augustin,Germany). A preferred embodiment of the present invention therefore isthe use of the crystal structure data obtained for the recombinantsoluble Fc receptor according to the invention and for the complexes ofrecombinant soluble Fc receptor according to the invention andcorresponding immunoglobulin in a computer aided modelling program forthe identification and production of Fc receptor inhibitors.

Likewise, a further embodiment of the present invention is the use ofthe crystal structure data obtained for the receptors according to theinvention and the receptor/immunoglobulin complexes, respectively forthe identification and preparation of new Fc receptors which can beused, e.g. as antagonists and competitors. The crystal structure dataand the data on the amino acids involved in the binding to Fc receptorsobtained therefrom can serve for example to generate mutatedimmunoglobulins which can also be used as inhibitors. It is imaginablethat mutated or chemically modified inhibitors undergo tight binding andthus effect a blocking of receptors. On the other hand, the dataobtained for the binding sites of immunoglobulins can also be used forthe identification and/or preparation of inhibitors for immunoglobulinmolecules. Since the present invention teaches the binding sites to thereceptor, it is easy to effect a blocking of the binding sites with thehelp of relatively simple molecules. Therefore, a further subject matterof the present invention is the use of the crystal structure dataobtained for the FcR/Ig complexes for the identification and/orpreparation of immunoglobulin inhibitors.

Accordingly, still further subject matter of the present invention areFcR inhibitors which have a three-dimensional structure which iscomplementary to the recombinant soluble FcR according to the inventionand inhibit the binding of antibodies to FcRs.

Another further subject of the present invention are immunoglobulininhibitors which have a three-dimensional structure which iscomplementary to the immunoglobulin binding site for recombinant solubleFc receptors according to the invention and inhibit the binding ofimmunoglobulins to Fc receptors.

The term “complementary” is to be understood within the framework of theinvention in such a way that the inhibitor molecules must be substanceswhich are able to cover at least so many binding sites on theimmunoglobulin or on the Fc receptor that the binding between Fcreceptor and immunoglobulin is at least decisively weakened. Coveringcan take place both by binding to the amino acids mediating the complexformation of either component but also in such a way that at leastcomplex formation is no longer possible, be it by sterically inhibitionor by binding to adjacent amino acids, however, covering the amino acidinvolved in the complex binding between Fc receptor and immunoglobulin.

In connection with the present invention it was possible for the firsttime to determine the exact binding sites and the amino acids involvedin the binding of the antibody and antibody receptor molecules. One isnow able to design specifically binding molecules and to screencandidate compositions on the computer. This enables the selection ofsuch compositions from a variety of possibly candidate compositionswhich can effect a sufficient inhibition of complex formation between Fcreceptor and immunoglobulin.

What is important for the inhibitors of the invention is that, owing totheir structure and specificity, they are capable of binding to the FcRsor immunoglobulins and thus prevent the normal binding between FcRs andthe constant parts of antibodies.

Preferably, such FcR or IgG inhibitors are small organic molecules whichcan easily be administered orally. They are an interesting alternativeto cortisone in the treatment of autoimmune diseases and host/graftrejections. Such a molecule would also suppress reinfection rates withcertain viruses, e.g. Dengue virus where the antibody coated virus isFcγRIIb dependent internalized (Littaua et al, 1990), HIV where on CD4.positive T cells an antibody enhancement of HIV infection is mediated byFcγRIII (Homsy et al, 1989), or Ebola where the virus secretedglycoprotein inhibits early neutrophil activation by blocking sFcγRIIIwhich affects the host response to infection (Yang et al, 1998).

The development of inhibitors also leads to substances that interferewith the recognition of IgE by their receptors. From the modelledstructure of FcεRI, peptides have already been developed which inhibitmast cell degranulation in vitro. With the now available knowledge ofthe structures of the homologue receptors and the receptor-antibodycomplex in atomic detail, a new possibility for a rational drug designis opened.

The Fc-receptor bind between the two CH2-domains of the Fc-fragment inthe so-called lower hinge region (FIG. 8). The binding region of theFc-receptor is described in Example 1 (The contact interface to IgG).The residues promoting the interaction between FcR and immunoglobulinare shown in FIGS. 7, 10 a and 10 b. Thereby three interaction regionsbecome evident (FIG. 5).

1st Region: FcR (Residues 85 to 87 and Residue 110)-Ig (Chain A Residues326-328)

Proline 328 of the Ig is clamped by the residues Trp 87 and 110 in asandwich like manner. These residues are conserved among the IgG and IgEreceptors as well as in the IgG and IgE. An inhibitor binding to thisprominent region would strongly interfere with binding. This region isadditionally attractive for inhibitor design because the exposedhydrophobic surface region comprising the residues Trp 87, Ile 85, Gly86 of the receptors could be employed to obtain additional bindingenergy. The functional groups of Thr 113 and Glu 18 and Lys 19 sidechains in the vicinity may contribute especially to specific inhibitorbinding.

2nd Region: FcR (Residues 126-132 and Residues 155-158)-Ig (Chain A andChain B Residues 234-239)

The amino terminal residues 234-239 of both Ig chains are recogniseddifferently by the FcR, thereby breaking the 2-fold symmetry of the Fcfragment.

This residues of Fc-fragment chain A are in contact with residues Val155-Lys 158 of the receptor and the same residues from Fc-fragment chainB with receptor residues Gly 126-His 132. This region shows the mostdifferences in the sequence alignment of the receptors as well as theimmunoglobulins and should therefore be involved in specificitygeneration. This deep cleft between the Fc-fragment chains is wellsuited for inhibitor design and would be the site of choice for thedevelopment of inhibitors when issues of specificity are concerned.

3rd Region: FcR (Residues 117, 126 and 129-132)-Ig (Chain B Residues264-265 and Residues 296-297)

This binding region is characterised by a clustering of amino acidresidues carrying functional groups in their side chains, that might beemployed in various ways for inhibitor design on the receptor and the Igside of the contact.

Molecules that interact with one or more of the above described regions,and are designed or screened explicitly for exploiting the knowledge ofbinding sites are considered as inhibitors according to the invention.

Further subject matters of the present invention are pharmaceuticalcompositions containing as active agent an FcR inhibitor or animmunoglobulin inhibitor as mentioned above. Such pharmaceuticalcompositions may, for example, be used in the treatment or prevention ofdiseases which are due to overreactions or faulty reactions of theimmune system, preferably the treatment or prevention of allergies,autoimmune diseases or anaphylactic shock.

A further subject of the present invention is the sFcR according to theinvention, bound to a solid phase. Such heterogeneous receptors can beused for immunoassays or other applications where the receptor in animmobilized form can be used beneficially.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention the solid phase is achromatography carrier material onto which the Fc receptor is fixed,e.g. sepharose, dextransulfate etc. Such chromatography materials withFc receptors bound thereto can beneficially be used for the adsorptionof immunoglobulins from the blood, plasma or serum of patients or fromthe culture supernatant of immunoglobulin producing cells (meaningconcentration, enrichment and purification of antibodies).

On the one hand, the antibodies bound to the chromatography material canbe eluted and, for example, the immune status of a patient can therebybe determined. On the other hand, antibodies from the blood of a patientcan thereby be enriched before carrying out further tests, which is afurther preferred embodiment of the present invention. In many cases itis difficult to conduct diagnostic assays using blood samples if thelatter contains only a very small number of the antibodies to beidentified. By means of a concentration using a specific chromatographiccolumn with Fc receptors according to the present invention, antibodiesof interest can easily be concentrated and separated from many othersubstances which might disturb the test.

Basically, it is also possible to use a chromatography materialaccording to the present invention in an extracorporeal perfusion systemfor lavage of the blood in case of certain diseases where the removal ofantibodies plays a crucial role.

It is, however, also possible to use another material as solid phase towhich the soluble Fc receptor according to the invention is coupled,e.g. microtiter plates or small reaction vessels to the walls of whichFc receptors are bound either directly or indirectly. Such solid phasesand vessels can be particularly important for diagnostic methods, asthey enable screening by using immunoassays e.g. for detecting thepresence of certain immunoglobins in patients' blood or other bodyfluids.

To sum up, the recombinant soluble Fc receptors provided by the presentinvention as well as the corresponding structure determination ofcrystalline preparations of these receptors and of crystalline complexesof receptors and immunoglobins enable for the first time to perform arational drug design, wherefrom it is possible to modulate theinteraction between immunoglobulins and Fc receptors on cells or solublereceptors. Such a modulation is preferably an inhibition, whereby theinhibition of the formation of a complex from IgG and Fc receptor takesplace by covering and preferably by binding of inhibitor molecules tothe Fc receptor or the immunoglobulin. There are various medicalapplications for such modulating drugs and in particular of inhibitorsand only few of these applications have been exemplary mentioned withinthe framework of the present specification. This can and should by nomeans exclude the applicability of such molecules which have beendesigned or screened on the basis of the findings about the molecularstructure or FcR/Ig complexes disclosed herein for the treatment orprevention of other health disturbances.

The following Examples are to further illustrate the invention inconjunction with the Figures.

EXAMPLE 1 shFcγRIIb (Soluble Human FcγRIIb) 1.1 Cloning and Expression

The cDNA of human FcγRIIb2 (Engelhardt et al, 1990) was modified usingmutagenous PCR (Dulau et al, 1989). Therefore, a forward primer was usedfor the introduction of a new start methionine after the cleavage siteof the signal peptide within a NcoI site (5′-AAT AGA ATT CCA TGG GGA CACCTG CAG CTC CC-3′) (SEQ ID NO: 19), while the reverse primer introduceda stop codon between the putative extracellular part and thetransmembrane region followed by a Sa/I site (5′CCC AGT GTC GAC AGC CTAAAT GAT CCC C-3′) (SEQ ID NO: 20). The PCR product was digested withNcoI and Sa/I, cloned into a pET11d expression vector (Novagen) and theproposed sequence was confirmed. The final construct was propagated inBL21 (DE3) (Grodberg and Dunn, 1988). For the overexpression of FcγRIIba single colony of the transformed bacteria was inoculated in 5 ml LBmedium containing 100 μg ampicillin per ml (LB-Amp 100) and incubatedovernight at 37° C. The culture was diluted 200-fold in LB-Amp 100 andincubation was continued until an OD600 of 0.7-0.9 was achieved. Theoverproduction of the protein was induced by adding IPTG to a finalconcentration of 1 mM. After a growing period of 4 hours the cells wereharvested by centrifugation (30 min, 4000×g) and resuspended insonification buffer (30 mM sodium phosphate, 300 mM sodium chloride,0.02% sodium azide, pH 7.8). After addition of 0.1 mg lysozyme per mlsuspension and incubation for 30 min at room temperature thesonification was performed on ice (Branson Sonifier, Danbury, Conn.;Macrotip, 90% output, 80% interval, 15 min). The suspension wascentrifuged (30 min, 30,000×g) and resuspended with a Dounce homogenizerin sonification buffer containing 0.5% LDAO. The centrifugation step andresuspension in LDAO containing buffer was repeated once before thisprocedure was repeated twice without LDAO. The purified inclusion bodieswere stored at 4° C.

1.2 Refolding and Purification of Soluble Human FcγRIIb (shFcγRIIb)

The purified inclusion bodies were dissolved to a protein concentrationof 10 mg/ml in 6 M guanidine chloride, 100 mM 2-mercaptoethanol andseparated from the insoluble matter by centrifugation. The refolding wasachieved by rapid dilution. Therefore, one ml of the inclusion bodysolution was dropped under stirring within 15 hours into 400 ml of therefolding buffer (0.1 M TRIS/HCI, 1.4 M arginine, 150 mM sodiumchloride, 5 mM GSH, 0.5 mM GSSG, 0.1 mM PMSF, 0.02% sodium azide, pH8.5, 4° C.). Afterwards, the mixture was stirred for 2-3 days until theconcentration of free thiol groups was reduced to 1 mM by air oxidationas measured according to Ellman (Ellman, 1959). The solution wasdialyzed against PBS and sterile filtered before it was concentrated10-fold in a stirring cell equipped with a 3 kD MWCO ultrafiltrationmembrane. The protein solution was applied to a hlgG sepharose column(50 mg hlgG per ml sepharose 4B). Unbound protein was washed out with 50mM TRIS pH 8.0 before elution of FcγRIIb by pH jump (150 mM sodiumchloride, 100 mM glycine, 0.02% sodium azide, pH 3.0). The eluate wasimmediately neutralized with 1 M TRIS pH 8.0. The FcγRIIb containingsolution was concentrated and subjected to gel filtration on aSuperdex-75 column equilibrated with crystallization buffer (2 mM MOPS150 mM sodium chloride, 0.02% sodium azide pH 7.0). The fractionscontaining FcγRIIb were pooled, concentrated to 7 mg/ml and stored at−20° C.

1.3 Equilibrium Gel Filtration Experiments

A Superdex75 column was connected to FPLC and equilibrated with PBScontaining 10 μg shFcRIIb per ml. Human Fc fragment was solved to aconcentration of 1 μg/10 μl in the equilibration buffer and injected.The resulting chromatogram yielded a positive peak comprising thecomplex of the shFcγRIIb and the Fc fragment while the negative peakrepresents the lack of receptor consumed from the running buffer forcomplex formation.

1.4 Crystallization and Data Collection

Initial crystallization trials employing a 96 condition sparse matrixscreen (Jancarik and Kim, 1991) were performed in sitting drops at 20°C. using the vapor diffusion method. Occurring. crystals were improvedby changing the pH as well as the salt, precipitant and additiveconcentration. Diffraction data from suitable crystals was collected onan image plate system (MAR research) using graphite monochromatedCuK_(a) radiation from a RU200b rotating anode generator (Rigaku)operated at 50 kV and 100 mA. The reflections were integrated with theprogram MOSFLM (Leslie, 1997) and subsequently the data was scaled,reduced and truncated to obtain the structure-factor amplitudes usingroutines from the CCP4 program suite (Collaborative ComputationalProject, 1994).

1.5 Summary of Expression, Purification and Refolding of shFcγRIIb

The extracellular part of FcγRIIb was expressed in high levels under thecontrol of a T7 promoter in the T7 RNA polymerase positive E. colistrand BL21/DE3 (Grodberg & Dunn, 1988). The protein was deposited ininclusion bodies, which were employed in the first purification step.The isolation of the inclusion bodies was started with an intensecombined Iysozyme/sonification procedure to open virtually all cellswhich would otherwise contaminate the product. The subsequent washingsteps with the detergent LDAO, which has excellent properties in solvingimpurities but not the inclusion bodies itself already yielded a productwith a purity of >90% (FIG. 1).

This product was used for refolding trials without further purification.The inclusion bodies were dissolved in high concentration of2-mercaptoethanol and guanidine to ensure the shift of covalent andnon-covalent aggregates to monomers. This solution was rapidly dilutedwith refolding buffer to minimize contacts between the unfolded proteinmolecules which would otherwise form aggregates. The use of arginine inthe refolding buffer prevents the irreversible modification of sidechains as often recognized with urea. After addition of the protein tothe refolding buffer, the solution was stirred at 4° C. until theconcentration of free thiol groups was reduced to 1 mM, which wasabsolutely necessary as earlier dialysis resulted in an•inactiveproduct. In a second purification step the dialyzed and refolded FcγRIIbwas bound to immobilized hlgG to remove minor fractions of E. coliproteins and inactive receptor. The protein was eluted with a pH jumpand immediately neutralized. After this affinity chromatography stepshFcγRIIb is essentially pure except for a minor contamination resultingfrom the coeluting IgG which leached out of the matrix even afterrepeated use (FIG. 1). The IgG as well as receptor multimers which arenot visible in the reducing SDS-PAGE could easily be removed by gelfiltration. Parallel to the removal of the contaminants in this step thebuffer is quantitatively exchanged. This procedure ensures a definedcomposition of the protein solution as even slight variations can causeirreproducibility of the crystallization attempts or even inhibit theformation of crystals. Overall 6 mg pure protein could be gained perlitre E. coli culture, which is about 10% from the FcγRIIb content ofthe inclusion bodies.

N-terminal protein sequencing revealed the identity with the expectedsequence H₂N-GTPAAP without detectable contamination. ESI-MS analysisshowed that the final material used in crystallization trials ishomogenous with respect to size. From the primary sequence the molecularweight was calculated to 20434 Da, which corresponds to 20429 Da foundby mass spectroscopy. The discrepancy lies within the error of theinstrument, and no additional peak for a species containing the leadingmethionine is found.

The crystallization of shFcγRIIb was performed in sitting drops usingthe vapor diffusion method. Initial trials with a sparse matrix screen(Jancarik & Kim, 1991) resulted already in small crystalline needles.Subsequent optimization of the preliminary crystallization condition byvarying precipitant, salt, their concentration and pH led to theisolation of three different crystal forms. Orthorhombic crystals grewfrom mixture of 1.5 μl reservoir solution (33% PEG2000, 0.2 M sodiumacetate, pH 5.4) with 3 μl of the protein solution. They appeared within3 days and reached their final size of approximately 80 μm×80 μm×500 μmafter one week. These crystals diffracted to 1.7 Å. Crystals could alsobe grown in two other space groups from reservoir solution containing26% PEG8000, 0.2 M sodium acetate, pH 5.6, 5 mM Zn(OAc)₂ 100 mM sodiumchloride (hexagonal form) and 26% PEG8000, 0.2 M NaOAc, pH 5.6, 10%(v/v) 1,4-Dioxan, 100 mM sodium chloride (tetragonal form). Thesecrystals were of suitable size for X-ray analysis but diffracted only to2.7 Å and 3.8 Å for the tetragonal and hexagonal crystal formrespectively (Table 1).

FcγRII was expressed in E. coli which, besides the comparatively lowproduction costs and the availability, has several advantages especiallywhen the glycosylation performed by mammalian cells is not necessary forthe function of the protein as in the case of FcγRII where IgG bindingoccurs independently of carbohydrate attachment (Sondermann et al,1998A). In E. coli a homogenous product can reproducibly be generated,which is in contrast to the expression in mammalian cells where batchdependent variances are often observed. In such a system the product isfor several days exposed to proteases at temperatures of more than 30°C. In contrary, the expression of the protein in E. coli under thecontrol of the strong T7 promoter at 37° C. frequently leads to theformation of protease inaccessible inclusion bodies. A further advantageof the expression in bacteria is that the material could be consideredto be free of pathogenic germs, which might derive from employed fetalcalf serum or the cell line itself. In mammalian expression particularcare must be taken during the purification of the target protein becausepotential effective hormones or growth factors might be copurified. Onecase where the effects of sFcγR were ascribed to a TGFβ1 contaminationis already reported (Galon et al, 1995).

1.6 Purification

The purification procedure is straightforward. It consists of threesteps which can easily be performed in a single day. The protein isobtained in a pure form and in high yields and could even be obtained inconsiderable quality without the expensive IgG affinity column. Thesuccess of such a protocol would depend on the careful preparation ofthe inclusion bodies, as most of the impurities can be eliminatedalready in the first purification step.

1.7 Characterization

The purified FcγRIIb was characterized by SDS-PAGE and isoelectricfocussing as well as N-terminal sequencing and mass spectroscopy. Thus,the material can be considered pure and homogeneous with respect to itschemical composition, but the intriguing question whether the receptoris correctly folded remains to be discussed. All cysteins are paired,since no free thiol groups are detected with Ellman's test. The materialis monomeric and eludes with the expected retention time in peaks ofsymmetrical shape from a size exclusion chromatography column.Furthermore, FcγRIIb binds to IgG sepharose, recombinant FcγRIIb from E.coli is active because it specifically binds IgG.

1.8 Crystallization

The orthorhombic crystal form of FcγRIIb diffracted X-rays to aresolution of 1.7 Å, which is a drastic improvement compared topreviously reported crystals of the same molecule derived from insectcell expression (Sondermann et al, 1998A). These crystals diffracted to2.9 Å and were of space group P3₁21. Thus, the glycosylation of theinsect cell derived receptor influences the crystallization conditions.Instead of the trigonal space group, three different crystal forms arefound. After a possible solution of the structure these crystal formswill help identify artificial conformations of the protein due tocrystal contacts.

FcγRs do not exhibit any sequence similarity to other proteins but dueto a conserved cystein spacing they are affiliated to the immunoglobulinsuper family. Consequently, we tried to solve its structure by molecularreplacement, but extensive trials using IgG domains from a variety ofmolecules failed. Thus the structure of FcγRIIb has to be solved by themethods of multiple isomorphous replacement.

We have shown for the first time that FcγRIIb can be obtained in anactive form from E. coli. This is the basis for crystallographicinvestigations that will soon, due to the already gained crystals ofexceptional quality, result in the structure solution of this importantmolecule. The structure will provide information on the IgG binding siteand provide a starting point for the knowledge based design of drugsthat interfere with recognition of the ligand by its receptor.Furthermore, because of the high homology between FcγRIIb and other FcRsincluding FcεRIa it seems possible that these molecules can be producedin the same way, which would provide valuable material for the ongoingresearch.

1.9 Methods Protein Chemistry

Recombinant soluble human FcγRIIb was expressed in E. coli, refoldedpurified and crystallized as described elsewhere (Sondermann et al,19988). Briefly, the putative extracellular region of hFcγRIIb2(Engelhardt et al, 1990) was overexpressed in E. coli. Inclusion bodieswere purified by lysozyme treatment of the cells and subsequentsonification. The resulting suspension was centrifuged (30 min 30,000×g)and washed with buffer containing 0.5% LDAO. A centrifugation step andresuspension in LDAO containing buffer was repeated once before thisprocedure was repeated twice without LDAO. The inclusion bodies weresolved in 6 M guanidine hydrochloride and the protein was renaturated asdescribed. The dialyzed and filtrated protein solution was applied to ahlgG sepharose column and eluted by pH jump. The concentratedneutralized fractions were subjected to size-exclusion chromatography ona Superdex-75 column (26/60, Pharmacia).

Crystallization

Crystallization was performed in sitting drops at 20° C. using the vapordiffusion technique. Crystallization screens were performed by changingpH, salt, precipitant and additives. The final crystals used for datacollection were grown in 33% PEG2000, 0.2 M sodium acetate, pH 5.4(orthorhombic form) 26% PEG8000, 0.2 M sodium acetate, pH 5.6, 10% (v/v)1,4-dioxane, 100 mM sodium chloride (tetragonal form), and 26% PEG8000,0.2 M sodium acetate, pH 5.6, 5 mM ZN(OAc)₂, 100 mM sodium chloride(hexagonal form). The insect cell derived protein was crystallized in32% PEG6000, 0.2 M sodium, pH 5.3.

Preparation of Heavy-Atom Derivatives

The heavy-atom derivatives were prepared by soaking the crystals in thecrystallization buffer containing 2 mMplatinum(II)-(2,2′-6,2″terpyridinium) chloride for 24 hours or 10 mMuranylchloride for 8 days.

X-Ray Data Collection

Diffraction data was collected on an image plate system (MAR research)using graphite monochromated CuK_(a) radiation from a RU200b rotatinganode generator (Rigaku) operated at 50 kV and 100 mA. The reflectionswere integrated with the program MOSFLM 5.50 (Leslie, 1997) andsubsequently the data was scaled and truncated to obtain thestructure-factor amplitudes using routines from the CCP4 program suite(Collaborative Computational Project, 1994).

Structure Determination

The structure was solved with the standard procedures of the MIR method.From the large-number of soaks carried out with different heavy-atomcomponents only the two compounds yielded interpretable Patterson maps.The heavy-atom positions for each derivative were determined fromdifference Patterson maps and initial phases were calculated.Cross-phased difference Fourier maps were used to confirm heavy atompositions and establish a common origin for the derivatives. Anomalousdata were included to discriminate between the enantiomers. The heavyatom parameters were further refined with the program MLPHARE from theCCP4 package leading to the statistics compiled in Table 2. Anelectron-density map was calculated to a resolution of 2.1 Å and thephases were improved further by solvent flattening and histogrammatching with the program DM from the CCP4 suite. The resulting electrondensity map was of sufficient quality to build most of the amino acidresidues. Model building was performed with 0 (Jones et al, 1991) on anIndigo2 work station (Silicon Graphics Incorporation). The structurerefinement was done with XPLOR (Brünger et al, 1987) by graduallyincreasing the resolution to 1.7 Å using the parameter set of Engh andHuber (Engh & Huber, 1991). When the structure was complete afterseveral rounds of model building and individual restraint B-factorsrefinement (R_(fac)=29%/R_(free)=36%), 150 water molecules were builtinto the electron density when a Fo-Fc map contoured at 3.5 σ coincidedwith well defined electron density of a 2Fo-Fc map contoured at 1σ. Theresulting refinement statistic is shown in Table 3.

1.10 Structure Determination

The crystal structure of recombinant soluble human FcγRIIb was solved bymultiple isomorphous replacement (MIR) to 1.7 Å resolution, since astructure solution by molecular replacement with isolated domains of theFc fragment from human IgG1 (Huber et al, 1976, PDB entry 1fc1;Deisenhofer, 1981) failed. The putative extracellular part of thereceptor (amino acid residues 1-187 as depicted in SEQ ID NO:2) was usedfor crystallization trials (Sondermann et al, 1998B) while the modelcontains the residues 5-176 as the termini are flexible and nottraceable into the electron density. Additionally, the model contains150 water molecules and the refinement statistics are summarized inTable 2. The structure contains a cis proline at position 11. None ofthe main chain torsion angles is located in disallowed regions of theRamachandran plot. The fully refined model was used to solve thestructure of the same protein in crystals of space group P4₂2₁2 and ofthe glycosylated form derived from insect cells in crystals of spacegroup P3₁21 (Table 2).

The polypeptide chain of FcγRIIb folds into two Ig-like domains asexpected from its affiliation with the immunoglobulin super family. Eachdomain consists of two beta sheets that are arranged in a sandwich withthe•conserved disulfide bridge connecting strands B and F on theopposing sheets (FIG. 3). Three anti-parallel β-strands (A1, B, E)oppose a sheet of 5 β-strands (C′, C, F, G, A21, whereby strand A1leaves the 3-stranded, B-sheet and crosses over to the 4-strandedanti-parallel sheet adding the short parallel 5th strand A2. Thearrangement of secondary structure elements as well as theirconnectivity is identical in both domains of the FcγRIIb and a rigidbody fit of one domain onto the other revealed a r.m.s. distance of 1.29Å of 67 matching Cα atoms.

The domains are arranged nearly perpendicularly to each other enclosingan angle of 70 degrees between their long axes forming a heart-shapedoverall structure. This arrangement results in an extensive contactregion between the domains (FIG. 4). Residues from strand A2 and fromthe segment linking A2 and A1 of the N-terminal domain intermesh withresidues of strands A1 and B from the C-terminal domain. This region istightly packed and the interaction is strengthened by several hydrogenbonds resulting in a rigid arrangement. This is confirmed by theconservation of the structure in three different space groups. Inorthorhombic, tetragonal and hexagonal (insect cell derived) crystalforms a deviation of less than 2° in the interdomain angle is found.

1.11 Overall Structures

The structure of recombinant human FcγRIIb derived from E. coli wassolved by MIR to 1.7 Å resolution from orthorhombic crystals. Anessentially identical structure is found in tetragonal and with proteinderived from insect cells in hexagonal crystals. In all three structuresthe last nine residues of the polypeptide chain were found disordered.The flexibility of the C-terminal linker region between the structuredcore of the molecule and the transmembrane part may be functionallyrelevant to allow some reorientation of the receptor to enhance therecognition of the Fc parts in immunocomplexes.

1.12 Homologue Receptors

The Ig domains found in the Ig super family of proteins arecharacterized by a beta sandwich structure with a conserved disulfidebridge connecting two strands of the opposing sheets. The typicalarrangement of 3 and 4 anti parallel beta strands that form a sandwichas found in FcγRIIb occurs also in the T cell receptor, Fc fragment, CD4or the Fab fragment. A structural alignment of the individual Ig domainsof these molecules with the two domains of FcγRIIb shows a common,closely related structure. The relative arrangement of the domains,however, is not related in these molecules and covers a broad sector.Despite the structural similarity between Ig domains from differentmolecules and the strikingly low r. m. s. deviation of Cα atoms thatresult when the two domains of FcγRII are superimposed, no significantsequence similarity is found (FIGS. 5 a and 5 b). A structure-basedsequence alignment shows a conserved hydrophobicity pattern along thesequence of the domains, together with, beside the cysteins, only fewidentical amino acid residues. We first prepared a structure-basedalignment of the two C-terminal domains of the IgG1 heavy chain and theFcγRIIb and added the sequences of the other related FcγR and the FcγRIadomains. This shows that the sequences of the three domain FcγRI and thetwo domain receptors are compatible with the hydrophobicity pattern ofIg domains and several conserved amino acid residues are revealed.Firstly, the different domains of an FcR are more related to each otherthan to Ig domains from other molecules of the Ig super family.Secondly, the N-terminal domains of the receptors relate to each otheras the second domains do. Thirdly, the sequence of the third domain ofFcγRI shows features from both groups of domains. Taken together, weconfirm the affiliation of the FcRs to the Ig super family and speculatethat all FcR-domains originate from a common ancestor, an ancient onedomain receptor that acquired a second domain by gene duplication.Further divergent development of such a two domain receptor resulted inthe present diversity, including FcγRI that acquired a third domain.

Conservation of these amino acid residues that contribute to theinterdomain contact in FcγRIIb in the alignment are a hint to a similardomain arrangement in different receptors. In Table 4 the residuescontributing with their side chains to the interdomain contact (FIG. 4)are compiled for FcγRIIb together with the corresponding amino acidresidues in other receptors according to the structure-based sequencealignment of FIG. 5 b. Except for Asn 15, which is not conserved betweenthe FcRs, the involved residues are identical or conservatively replacedproviding strong support for a similar structure and domain arrangementin all FcRs.

1.13 The Contact Interface to IgG

Limited information about the interactions of FcRs with their ligands isavailable from mutagenesis studies (Hogarth et al, 1992; Hulett et al,1994; Hulett et al, 1995). By systematically exchanging loops betweenthe β-strands of FcγRIIa for FcεRIa amino acid residues the B/C, C′/Eand F/G loops of the C-terminal domain were evaluated as important forligand binding (FIG. 3, FIG. 5 b). In the structure model these loopsare adjacent and freely accessible to the potential ligand.Additionally, most of the amino acid residues in these loops wereexchanged for alanines by single site mutations which resulted in adrastic alteration of the affinity of FcγRIIa to dimeric human IgG1.Also, the single amino acid exchange Arg 131 to His in the C-terminaldomain (C′/E loop) in the high responder/low responder polymorphism,which alters the affinity of the FcγRIIa to murine IgG1, points to thatregion. Thus, the amino acid residues in this area are either importantfor ligand binding or the structural integrity of that region. Here, thestructure shows a clustering of the hydrophobic amino acid residues Pro114, Leu 115 and Val 116 in the neighbourhood of Tyr 157. This patch isseparated from the region Leu 159, Phe 121 and Phe 129 by the positivelycharged amino acid residues Arg 131 and Lys 117 which protrude from thecore structure (FIG. 5 b).

1.14 Glycosylation

In the sequence of FcγRIIb three potential N-glycosylation sites arefound. All three sites are on the surface of the molecule and areaccessible. They are located in the E/F loops (N61 and N142) of bothdomains and on strand E (N135) of the C-terminal domain (FIG. 3, FIG.6). Since the material used for the solution of this structure wasobtained from E. coli, it does not contain carbohydrates, while the FcRsisolated from mammalian cells are highly glycosylated. The threepotential glycosylation sites are located rather far from the putativeIgG binding region, and non-glycosylated FcγRIIb binds human IgG,suggesting a minor role of glycosylation in binding. This was confirmedby the structure of the FcγRIIb produced in insect cells which isglycosylated (Sondermann et al, 1998A). Except for a 2° change of theinterdomain angle possibly due to different crystal contacts, nodifferences between the glycosylated and unglycosylated proteinstructures were found. The three glycosylation sites are only optionallyused as shown by SDS-PAGE where the material appears in 4 bands. Noadditional electron density for those sugars was found a consequence ofchemical and structural heterogeneity.

EXAMPLE 2 shFcγRIIa (Soluble Human FcγRIIa)

The procedures were performed according to example 1 except for theindicated changes:

2.1 Cloning and Expression

shFcγRIIa was generated by mutating the respective wild-type cDNA(Stengelin et al., 1988) and expressed according to example 1 with themutagenous primers listed in table 5. For the expression of the proteina pET22b+vector was chosen.

2.2 Refolding and Purification

shFcγRIIa was refolded according to example 1 with the respectiverefolding buffer listed in table 6.

2.3 Crystallisation

shFcγRIIa was crystallised as described under conditions indicated intable 7.

2.4 Structure Determination

The structure was solved with the method of isomorphous replacement withshFcγRIIb as search model.

EXAMPLE 3 shFcγRIII (Soluble Human FcγRIII)

The procedure was performed according to example 1 except for theindicated changes:

3.1 Cloning and Expression

shFcγRIII was generated by mutating the respective wild-type cDNA(Simmons & Seed, 1988) and expressed according to example 1 with themutagenous primers listed in table 5. For the expression of the proteina pET22b+vector was chosen.

3.2 Refolding and Purification

shFcγRIII was refolded according to example 1 with the respectiverefolding buffer listed in table 6.

3.3 Crystallisation

shFcγRIII was crystallised as described under conditions indicated intable 7.

3.4 Structure Determination

The structure was solved with the method of isomorphous replacement withshFcγRIIb as search model.

3.5 Crystallisation of a shFcγRIII:hFc1 Complex

hlgG1 derived from the serum of a myeloma patient was used to prepareFc-fragments (hFc1) by digestion with plasmin (Deisenhofer et al.,1976). The resulting Fc-fragments were separated from the Fab-fragmentsby protein A chromatography. Partially digested hlgG was removed by sizeexclusion chromatography with MBS (2 mM MOPS, 150 mM NaCl, 0.02% sodiumazide, pH 7.0) as running buffer. Equimolar amounts of hFc1 andshFcgRIII were mixed and diluted with MBS to a concentration of 10mg/ml. The complex was crystallised as described under conditionsindicated in table 5.

EXAMPLE 4 shFcεRII (Soluble Human FcεRII)

The procedure was performed according to example 1 except for theindicated changes:

4.1 Cloning and Expression

FcεRII was generated by mutating the respective wild-type cDNA (Kikutaniet al., 1986) and expressed according to example 2 with the mutagenousprimers listed in table 5. For the expression of the protein apET23a+vector was chosen.

4.2 Refolding and Purification

Refolding of shFcεRII was achieved as described in example 1, with theexception that prior to rapid dilution the dissolved inclusion bodieswere dialysed against 6M guanidine chloride, 20 mM sodium acetate, pH4.0. shFcεRII was refolded according to example 1 with the respectiverefolding buffer listed in table 6. After refolding the protein solutionwas dialysed against PBS, concentrated 100-fold and purified by gelfiltration chromatography on Superdex 75. This yielded pure shFcεRIIwhich was dialysed against 2 mM TRIS/. HCl, 150 mM NaCl, 0.02% sodiumazide, pH 8.0, concentrated to 10 mg/ml and stored at 4° C.

EXAMPLE 5 shFcγRI (Soluble Human FcγRI)

The procedure was performed according to example 1 except for theindicated changes:

5.1 Cloning and Expression

shFcγRI was generated by mutating the respective wild-type cDNA (Allen &Seed, 1988) and expressed according to example 1 with the mutagenousprimers listed in table 5. For the expression of the protein apET32a+vector was chosen, which contains after the N-terminalthioredoxin a hexahistidine-tag with a C-terminal thrombin cleavage sitefollowed by the shFcγRI in frame with the mentioned proteins and aminoacid residues. For the overexpression of the fusion protein the E. colistrain BL21 (DE3) containing the plasmids pUBS and pLysS (Novagen) wasused.

The purified inclusion bodies were solubilised in 6M guanidine-HCI, 10mM β-mercaptoethanol, 50 mM Tris pH8.0 and bound to a Ni-NTA column(Qiagenl. The elution was performed with an imidazole gradient rangingfrom 0 to 1M imidazole. The eluted protein was dialysed against a 1000fold volume of 150 mM NaCl, 50 mM Tris pH8.0, 2 mM GSH, 0.5 mM GSSG for24 hours at 4° C. After concentrating the protein solution to 25% of theinitial volume, thrombin was added. After 6 h of incubation at 37° C.the N-terminal thioredoxin and the His-tag were removed completely asverified by N-terminal sequencing. During this digestion the shFcgRIprecipitated quantitatively out of solution.

5.2 Refolding and Purification

shFcγRI was refolded according to example 1 with the respectiverefolding buffer listed in table 6. After the redox potential decreasedto 1 mM the solution was dialysed against PBS pH8.0 and concentrated.

The refolded Protein was analysed by size exclusion chromatography,which yielded a peak of the proposed monomeric receptor and non reducingSDS-PAGE which showed a major band at 30 kDa.

EXAMPLE 6 shFcεRIa (Soluble Human FcεRIa)

The procedure was performed according to example 1 except for theindicated changes:

6.1 Cloning and Expression

shFcεRI was generated by mutating the respective wild-type cDNA (Kochanet al., 1988) and expressed according to example 1 with the mutagenousprimers listed in table 5. For the expression of the protein apET23a+vector was chosen.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1: 15% reducing SDS PAGE showing the purification of sFcγRIIb

Lane 1: Molecular weight marker. Lane 2: E. coli lysate beforeinduction. Lane 3: E. coli lysate 1 h after induction. Lane 4: E. colilysate 4 h after induction. Lane 5: Purified inclusion bodies ofsFcγRIIb. Lane 6: Eluate of the hlgG affinity column. Lane 7: Pooledfractions of the gel filtration column.

FIG. 2: Equilibrium gel filtration

1 μg hFc solved in 10 μl equilibration buffer (10 μg sFcγRIIb/ml PBS)was applied to a size exclusion chromatography column and the absorbanceof the effluent was measured (280 nm) as a function of time. Theinjected Fc fragment forms a complex with the sFcγRIIb in theequilibration buffer (t=22 min). The negative peak of consumed sFcγRIIbis observed at t=26 min.

FIG. 3: Overall structure of human sFcγRIIb

Stereo ribbon representation of the sFcγRIIb structure. The loopssupposed to be important for IgG binding are depicted in red with someof the residues within the binding site and the conserved disulfidebridge in ball and stick representation. The potential N-glycosylationsites are shown as green balls. The termini are labeled and theβ-strands are numbered consecutively for the N-terminal domain in blackand for the C-terminal domain in blue. The figure was created using theprograms MOLSCRIPT (Kraulis, 1991) and RENDER (Merritt and Murphy,1994).

FIG. 4: Interdomain contacts

The figure shows a close-up on the residues involved in the interdomaincontacts of sFcγRIIb. The amino acid residues of the N-terminal domainare depicted blue and the residues of the C-terminal domain yellow. Themodel is covered by a 2Fo-Fc electron density contoured at 1σ obtainedfrom the final coordinates. Hydrogen bridges between the domains arerepresented by white lines. The figure was created using the programMAIN (Turk, 1992).

FIG. 5 a: Superposition of the two FcγRIIb domains and the CH2 domain ofhuman IgG1

Both domains of FcγRIIb and the CH2 domain of hlgGl were superimposed.The N-terminal domain is depicted in blue, the C-terminal domain in redand the CH2 domain of hlgGl in green. The respective termini are labeledand the conserved disulfide bridges are depicted as thin lines.

FIG. 5 b: Structure based sequence alignment of the sFcγFIIb domainswith domains of other members of the FcR family

The upper part of the figure shows the structure based sequencealignment of the FcγRIIb and hlgGl Fc fragment domains performed withthe program GBF-3D-FIT (Lessel & Schomburg, 1994). Amino acid residueswith a Cα distance of less than 2.0 Å in the superimposed domains aremasked: lilac for matching residues between the Fc fragment domains;yellow for residues in the FcγRIIb domains; and green when they can besuperimposed in all four domains. The β-strands are indicated below thispart of the alignment and are labeled consistent with FIG. 3.

The lower part of the figure shows the alignment of the amino acidsequences from the other FcγRs and the homologue FCεRIa to the profilegiven in the upper part of the figure using routines from the GCGpackage (Genetics Computer Group, 1994). The upper and lower row ofnumbering refer to the N- and C-terminal domains of FcγRIIb. Theconserved cysteins are typed in magenta and the potential glycosylationsites in blue. Identical residues within the first domain are maskedorange, those in the second domain pink and green when the residues areconserved within both domains. The less conserved third domain of FcγRIis aligned between the first and the second domains. Red arrows point toresidues that are involved in side chain contacts between the first andthe second domain while blue arrows depict residues that are relevantfor IgG binding. The figure was produced with the program ALSCRIPT(Barton, 1993).

FIG. 6: The putative binding sites of FcγRIIb

Solid surface representations of FcγRIIb as produced with GRASP(Nicholls et al, 1991), the color coding is according to the relativesurface potential from negative (red) to positive (blue). FIG. 6 a showsthe molecule as in FIG. 3 by a rotation of about 90° counter-clockwisearound the vertical. In FIG. 6 b the molecule is rotated 90° clockwisearound the same axis. Both views show the putative binding regions onthe C-terminal (FIG. 6 a) and the N-terminal domain (FIG. 6 b). Theamino acid residues discussed in the text are labeled.

FIG. 7: Cα-trace of the superpositioned structures of the Fcγ-receptors

FcγRIII red, FcγRIIa green and FcγRIIb blue. Residues important for IgGbinding are shown in ball-and-stick. The N- and C-termini are labelled.

FIG. 8: Overview of the FcγRIII/Fc-fragment crystal structure in ribbonrepresentation

The sugar residues bound to the Fc-Fragment are indicated inball-and-stick. The FcγRIII (blue) binds in the lower hinge regionbetween chain-B (red) and chain-A (green) of the Fc-fragment.

FIG. 9: Close-up on the binding region of the FcγRIII and theFc-fragment

The colour scheme is in agreement to FIG. 8 and residues important forcomplex formation are shown in ball-and-stick.

FIG. 10 a:

In the upper part of FIG. 10 a a structure based sequence alignment ofthe Fc-Receptor ecto-domains is shown. Conserved residues are shadedyellow and identical residues orange. The lower part of the figure showsa part of the alignment of human antibody sequences. Residues 9f thehuman FcγRIII in contact with the Fc-fragment in the complex crystalstructure are connected by lines (black for hydrophobic interaction, redfor salt bridges and blue for hydrogenbridges. Residues from theFc-receptor in contact with the A-chain of the Fc-fragment are connectedwith dashed lines and those in contact with the β-chain of theFc-fragment with solid lines. Red, blue and black lines representcharged, polar and other contacts, respectively.

FIG. 10 b:

In the upper part of FIG. 10 b a structure based sequence alignment ofthe Fc-Receptor ecto-domains is shown. Conserved residues are shadedyellow and identical residues orange. Conserved residues within the lessrelated Kir and FcA-Receptor sequences are shaded blue. The lower partof the figure shows a part of the alignment of human antibodies with themouse IgE (mlgE) sequence. Residues of the human FcγRIII in contact withthe Fc-fragment in the complex crystal structure are connected by lines(black for hydrophobic interaction, red for salt bridges and blue forhydrogenbonds). Residues from the Fc-receptor in contact with theA-chain of the Fc-fragment are connected with dashed lines and those incontact with the B-chain of the Fc-fragment with solid lines. Red, blueand black lines represent charged, polar and other contacts,respectively.

FIG. 11 and FIG. 12:

FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 show an alignment of the produced sFcγR, sFcεRIa andthe short form of sFcεRII and the produced sFcγR and sFcεRIa withoutsFcεRII, respectively.

TABLE 1 Crystallographic results Orthorhombic Tetragonal Hexagonal Spacegroup P2₁2₁2₁ [19] P4₂2₁2 [94] P3 [143] Unit cell a = 40.8 Å, b = 50.9Å, a = 85.7 Å, b = 85.7 Å, a = 80.9 Å, b = 80.9 Å, dimensions c = 80.5Å, α = 90°, c = 63.4 Å, α = 90°, c = 157.0 Å, α = 90°, β = 90°, γ = 90°β = 90°, γ = 90° β = 90°, γ = 90° R_(merge) 5.8% 9.8% 13.6% Resolution1.7 Å 2.7 Å 3.8 Å Unique 18,040 6,616 7,210 Completeness 89.1% 97.1%63.0% Multiplicity 3.5 4.4 1.3 V_(m), molecules 2.09 Å³/Da, 1 mol., 2.91Å/Da, 1 mol, 2.97 Å/Da, 5 mol, per asymmetric 41% solvent 58% solvent59% solvent unit, solved content The obtained preliminarycrystallographic data are shown in this table.

TABLE 2 Data collection statistics Completeness No. of (overall/ No.Space unique Resolution last shell) R_(m) of Phasing Derivative Groupreflections Multiplicity (Å) (%/%) (%) sites power NATI P2₁2₁2₁ 180093.6 1.74 92.9/86.4 5.5 NATI P4₂2₁2 6615 4.5 2.70 97.1/94.3 10.4 NATI-P3₁21 3545 2.5 3.0 93.0/98.9 14.4 Baculo UOAc P2₁2₁2₁ 7722 4.2 2.196.8/95.7 7.3 1 1.79 PtPγ P2₁2₁2₁ 5520 3.9 2.3 89.7/49.6 10.5 1 1.39R_(m) = Σ1/_(h) − </_(h)>1/Σ</_(h)> Phasing power: <F_(H)>/E; where<F_(H)> = Σ (F_(H) ²/n)^(1/2) is the r.m.s. heavy atom structureamplitude.

E=Σ[(F_(PHC) ⁻F_(PH))²/n]^(1/2) is the residual lack of closure errorwith F_(PH) being the structure factor amplitude andF_(PHC)=IF_(P)+F_(H)I the calculated structure factor amplitude of thederivative.

TABLE 3 Refinement statistics Resolution range (Å) 8.0-1.74 Å No. ofunique reflections 16252 (F > 0σ(F)) R factor 19.4 R_(free)* 27.9 No. ofatoms per asymmetric unit protein 1371 solvent 150 Rms deviation fromideal geometry bond length (Å) 0.009 bond angle (°) 2.007 Average Bfactor (Å²) protein main chain 18.8 protein side chain 25.2 solvent 36.7Rms deviation of bonded B factors 4.1 (Å²) *R_(free): 5% of thereflections were used as a reference data set and were not included inthe refinement.

TABLE 4 Residues that contribute to the interdomain contact via sidechains FcγRIIb FcγRIIa FcγRIII FcγRI FcεRIa Asn15 Asn Ser Ser Arg Asp20Asp Asp Glu Glu Gln91 Gln Gln Gln Gln His108 His His His His Trp110 TrpTrp Trp Trp

TABLE 5 Primers used for the amplification of the FcRs Construct5′-Prmer 3′-Primer sFcγRI 5--CACCCATATGGCAGTGATCTCTTT-3′5′-AGGACTCGAGACTAGACAGGAGTTGGTAAC-3′ sFcγRIIa5′-ACAGTCATATGGCAGCTCCCC-3′ 5′-AAAAAAAGCTTCAGGGCACTTGGAC-3′ sFcγRIIb5′-AATTCCATGGGGACACCTGCAGCTCCC-3′ 5′-CCCAGTGTCGACAGCCTAAATGATCCCC-3′sFcγRIII 5′-AAAAAAACATATGCGGACTGAAG-3′ 5′-AAAAAAGCTTAACCTTGAGTGATG-3′sFcεRIa 5′-GATGGCCATATGGCAGTCCCTCAG-3′ 5′-CAATGGATCCTAAAATTGTAGCCAG-3′sFcεRII 5′-AAAAAAACATATGGAGTTGCAGG-3′ 5′-TGGCTGGATCCATGCTCAAG-3′

Introduced restriction sites are underlined, start- and stop-codons aredepicted as bold-italics

TABLE 6 Refolding Conditions for the FcRs Construct Buffer sFcγRI 0.1 MTRIS/HCI, 1.2M arginine, 150 mM NaCI, S mM GSH, 0.5 mM GSSG, 0.02%sodium azide, pH 8.0 sFcγRIIa 0.1 M TRIS/HCI, 1.4M arginine, 150 mMNaCI, 2 mM GSH, 0.5 mM GSSG, 0.02% sodium azide, pH 8.0 sFcγRIIb 0.1 MTRIS/HCI, 1.4M arginine, 150 mM NaCI, S mM GSH, 0.5 mM GSSG, 0.02%sodium azide, pH 8.0 sFcγRIII 0.1 M TRIS/HCI, 1.0M arginine, 150 mMNaCI, 2 mM GSH, 0.5 mM GSSG, 0.02% sodium azide, pH 8.0 sFcεRII 0.1 MTRIS/HCl, a.8M arginine, 150 mM NaCI, 5 mM GSH, 0.5 mM GSSG, 0.02%sodium azide, pH 8.3

TABLE 7 Crystallisation Conditions for the FcRs Space group, cellResolu- Construct Condition constants tion sFcγRIIa 26% PEG 8000, C2, a= 80.4 Å, 3.0 Å 0.2M sodium b = 49.7 Å, c = 54.6 Å, acetate/acetic a = g= 90°, b = 128.1° acid pH 4.6, 0.02% sodium azide sFcγRIIb 33% PEG 2000,P212121, a = 40.8 Å, 1.7 Å 0.2M sodium b = 50.9 Å, c = 80.5 Å, acetate,0.02% a = b = g = 90° sodium azide, pH 5.4 sFcγRIII 22% PEG 8000,P22121, a = 36.7 Å, 2.5 Å 0.1M MES/TRIS pH b = 60.3 Å, c = 85.6 Å, 7.8,0.02% sodium a = b = g = 90° azide sFcγRIII: 6% PEG 8000, 0.1M P6522,3.3 Å hFc1 MES/TRIS pH 5.6, a = b = 115.0 Å, 0.2M Na/K c = 303.3 Å,tartrate, 0.02% a = b = 90°, g = 120° sodium azide sFcγRIII 22% PEG8000, P22121, a = 36.7 Å, 2.5 Å 0.1M MES/TRIS pH b = 60.3 Å, c = 85.6 Å,7.8, 0.02% sodium a = b = g = 90° azide

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1-40. (canceled) 41-66. (canceled)
 67. A purified, crystalline,recombinantly produced, soluble Fcγ or Fcε receptor molecule, whichlacks any of (i) a transmembrane domain, (ii) signal peptide, and (ii)glycosylation.
 68. The purified, crystalline recombinantly producedsoluble Fcγ or Fcε receptor molecule of claim 67, which is a humanreceptor.
 69. The purified, crystalline, recombinantly produced solubleFcγ or Fcε receptor molecule of claim 67, comprising an amino acidsequence set forth in SEQ. ID NO. 3 or SEQ ID NO:
 4. 70. A purifiedcomplex of the purified, crystalline recombinantly produced soluble Fcγor Fcε receptor of claim 1, and immunoglobulin.
 71. The purified,crystalline, recombinantly produced soluble Fcγ or Fcε receptor moleculeof claim 67, produced by expression of said molecule in a prokaryoticcell.
 72. A method of identifying an Fcγ or Fcε receptor inhibitor ofclaim 67, comprising inputting, crystal structure data from saidreceptor into a computer modeling program to identify an inhibitor whichis complementary to said receptor.
 73. A method for identifying orpreparing an Fcγ or Fcε receptor molecule of claim 67, wherein saidinhibitor is complementary to said molecule, comprising inputtingcrystalline data from said molecule into a computer aided modelingprogram to identify or to prepare said inhibitor.
 74. A method foridentifying or preparing an inhibitor of the molecule of claim 67,comprising: (i) obtaining three dimensional structural data for saidmolecule, and (ii) selecting or designing one of: (a) an inhibitor ofsaid molecule which is complementary to an Fcγ or Fcε receptor bindingsite of an immunoglobulin; (b) an inhibitor which is complementary to animmunoglobulin binding site of an Fcγ or Fcε receptor, and (c) anantagonist or competitive Fcγ or Fcε receptor.
 75. A method formodulating interaction of an Fc receptor and an immunoglobulin molecule,comprising contacting a mixture of said Fc receptor and saidimmunoglobulin molecule with an inhibitor identified by the method ofclaim 73 or 74, under conditions favoring modulating interaction. 76.The method of claim 75, wherein said inhibitor partially or completelyinhibits binding and said immunoglobulin.